I refuse to nap. I refuse to nap. I refuse to nap.

Blog Post 3

The website I analyzed was http://www.poweringanation.org/water/ The first thing I noticed about the page was a large video right in the center with a play button. I think this is very intriguing for a website. Putting a video right from the start when users go to this page is risky; however, I think it works with this type of website because the main message is about protecting water, which relates to every single person.

This is the first website I have been exposed to where a video is the first thing to grab attention and I admire this idea. Other than YouTube, people do not usually get a video right away when first stopping at a website. I think this is intriguing because of the message the website is trying to get across. If this were a news site or something such as a weather site, I would not approve. However, with a site that is promoting saving resources, I think it works nice.

This is an interesting assignment for me because I have become so much aware of what I do first when I come to a web page. For this particular site, after watching the introductory video, I found myself very mesmerized by the photos that followed the video. Each photo had to do with preserving water and had intense emotion to them. I have learned in Psychology that most people learn more and are inspired more when photos are involved with text and I think this website does a great job with keeping the viewer intrigued to keep exploring.

I found myself scrolling over each photo wanting to know how water has influenced people’s lives in our society. I admired how while scrolling over a photo, a caption would appear to tell you a little about the photo to allow you to choose if you wanted to read the story or not. This site used a lot of the navigation tips. The only tip it did not use is easy navigation back the previous place.

Something I noticed myself doing was getting a little bored with some of the stories. The music in one of the videos was a slow piano and I began to focus more on the depressing music than the story being told. I also did not appreciate the white color font to tell a story about the pictures because the font color hurt my eyes. There was also no back button or refresh button to get back to the photos with the stories so I began to keep clicking and I got a little frustrated.

Finding contact information was a little strange, however, I’ve seen worse. Finding the contact information to the site took me about twenty seconds. I guessed to go through the “About” page and I found the creators of the website. I found through this link that the “100 gallons” challenge is actually a journalistic presentation. I would have never guessed. I thought it was an actual project that had been launched to get people involved. One thing I did admire about the “About” page is that all of the writers photos were there and they made me smile because each person was under water. This is a great idea for contact information in my opinion. I like how they incorporated who they are and what they want to achieve through the contact page.

When conducting a usability test on my friend she admired the same aspects of the site that I did. I noticed after watching the introductory video, she wanted to keep hearing more about the stories with water. While exploring the site for ten minutes she kept repeating “that’s interesting” and “cool.” I found that we both clicked on the image of the woman crying after watching the video. I think we both clicked on her because she expressed the most emotion out of all the photos. She also found the contact information in about the same time that I did, about twenty seconds.

One problem my roommate did not like about the page is that there were only the video along with the photos and stories. She stated that the page does not really give good insight of how to help with the problems that is discusses. She stated that the site criticizes everyone for using water, but does not really give good examples of how to help. Even though she liked the site, her final statement was “the site ultimately just made me thirsty.”

Three things that should change about the website are giving more information of how to help to viewers. It seems like the site is trying too much for entertainment rather than wanting people to help preserve water. Another thing that should change is when clicking on the bottom link that says “Why 100 gallons?” there is one sentence that answers the question. If the whole site is about 100 gallons, the site needs to answer the question more fully. The last thing that could change is simply giving more information. I feel there could be a lot more links, text, and videos to describe the problems of people using water.

Three things that should stay the same is the introductory video, color of the site, and the contact information. I think these were some of the strongest parts of the site because they all had to do with preserving water and they grab the attention of viewers.